I think that the more you learn about the habits of your quarry, the better the hunter you'll be, and getting out in the mountains one week a year just isn't enough to learn their habits!
You read articles about guys that have scouted all summer for a trophy buck. That's their hunt of the year and we know to be successful you need to scout but the normal guy may only get two weeks of vacation.
He's lucky if he can take one for hunting and then he has to use the other one for family vacation. So most people don't get to scout near enough due to vacation restrictions.
But I guarantee you, the more you scout, the more successful you'll become. Since it's not an option for most people to scout for three weeks I'm going to talk about mini-scouting trips.
If you're new to Nevada you may not realize how much game travels when moving from their summer feeding areas down to their wintering zones. Elk/deer migrate for miles. So just because you saw a nice bull in July doesn't mean that he is going to be in that same area in November.
Where I was wolf hunting in March and seeing 3-500 head of elk/deer per day, one month later and they've moved up higher.
If you hunt the same area every year you'll learn the saddles where game likes to cross and the drainages that they frequent. So if you've hunted your area for 20 years you don't have to scout as much....to a degree.
But, what if a new group of hunters shows up in your spot, or there's been a forest fire? Or they've started logging in your area? Or now with the implantation of a foreign species, such as the Canadian wolf, they move into your drainage and slaughter everything? (Just wait until you get them).
So due to these factors I say you need to have up to three spots lined up/scouted out in case you have to go to plan B or C.
To increase your scouting opportunities I recommend doubling up your fishing and camping trips as scouting trips. If I take the family up camping and see a lot of elk sign, do you not think that I make a mental note?
Don't go camping with the family to the same spot every weekend. Bounce around. Gee, I hope my wife never reads this article or she'll think that I'm a conniving scalawag. When you backpack in fly-fishing look around at daylight and dusk for game and blow some calls. Use your weekend trips as combination scouting trips.
Learn to be a smart scout. Animals can't fly so if they're in an area they're going to leave sign. As previously stated, just because you saw a nice buck or bull in a certain spot in June, that doesn't mean that he is still there in September. So you have to do some last minute scouting trips one to two weeks before hunting season to make sure that everything is status quo.
I teach glassing for big game seminars so I'm big on glassing, but every year it is reaffirmed to me how important it is.
Once we were near the Nevada border with some buddies and spotted a few bucks in a patch of brush 600 yards off the trail. While glassing 20 trucks/4-wheelers drove by oblivious to them.
After the stalk John said that there's two more bucks in there. No way, we had just walked through the brush throwing rocks. Sure enough, he'd spotted two more bucks in that patch of brush.
I tell you the above to point out that you have to buy good optics. At the SHOT show this year I bet I counted at least 75 optic companies. There were a lot of cheap ones. Everyone has a budget, but buy the best optics that you can afford. Don't leave any change in your pockets.
I've had good luck with Leupold and Bushnell products. You can't kill what you can't see. There is no telling how much game that you pass by and never even know it. Buy good optics!
So if you just go out one week a year then you're just not going to really know much about the habits of big game animals. I think the more that you're in the mountains, the more you'll know. I don't care if it's in the dead of winter long after the season is over. You'll see how they live in the snow, how they interact with each other and so forth.
My advice is don't wait until a week before season to start scouting. In January I'm already in a low key scouting mode. It'll carry on into my summer backpacking trips.
By the time hunting season rolls around, you can bet I've already got three to four spots lined out to hunt.
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